Black Coal, Thin Ice (Bai ri yan huo) (Yi’nan Diao, 2014) : China

Reviewed by Magali Vautrin. Viewed at SBIFF 2015.

Yi’nan Diao is a Chinese writer and director known for his movies Shower (1999) and Night Train (2007). His movie Black Coal Thin Ice was honored by a Golden Bear and Silver Bear at Berlin International Film.

Five years after being fired from the police department, a detective returns and decide to close the case that made him loose his job 5 years earlier.

The lights, , the colors of the movie have a naturalistic look .

The cinematography of the movie is amazing and I noticed a lot of shots : at the verry beginning the main character enter a tunnel  , it is 1999. At the end of the tunnel, it is 2004. I thought it was a very good natural transition between the first act of the movie and the second act. Also at the beginning we can appreciate the numerous P.O.V ; for example the director and cinematographer made the camera literally falls in order to give the audience the sensation of a fall. There is also other shots that attracted my attentions: the director, Yi’nan Diao, made a very interesting choice in filming the back of his actors while they are having conversation .

I found that the editing pace was really slow, some scenes can feel really long to the audience in my opinion. Also some scenes weren’t really needed. The movie was 1h40, but it seemed really longer from an audience point of view.

One scene retained my attention, the hair dresser scene; the colors, light, were amazing, a lot of contrasts.

I also noticed, maybe because it is a movie made in China, that sex and murder film are implicit; we do not see the details we only can imagine, for instance the audience understand that two characters of the story are making love by seeing only the hands of the woman; and I really thought it made the movie very mysterious and more interesting.

The story itself was good but I really felt that the movie was long, even more toward the end. I would not recommend it unless ones have time to loose. I would definitely not watch it a second time .